Tuesday, February 3, 2009

I want what I want when I want it, but I will not humiliate myself in order to get it.

I am emotionally immature. When I stick to my Weight Watchers points for a while and resist the urge to chow down on crap, my mind immediately seizes upon another way to placate the compulsion monster residing inside me. I can buy something I shouldn't! I can avoid my homework! I can chintz out on a commitment!

Last week, I lied to my sponsor. I wanted to skip a commitment, so I lied. And on Saturday, I had a terrible dream about relapsing. When I woke up, I realized that being dishonest was almost as bad as drinking. I was putting myself in as much danger. On Sunday, I wrote to my sponsor and told her the truth. I didn't hear back from her yesterday and figured that she was writing to her sponsors, thinking, and praying about what to do. She wrote back today and said that she can't be my sponsor anymore; that she can't be my Truth Cop. She is asking for one year of honesty. I feel sad, but I see why we have to break it off.

Do I find a new sponsor and a new home group? Do I keep going to my old home group? My sobriety anniversary is coming up on the 14th... I don't know if I want to sit through my home group's tradition with things as they are. (My home group has one person present the medallion to the birthday boy/girl, then the whole group passes it around and says something to the birthday boy/girl, and finally, the birthday boy/girl tells how they did it.) It's a wonderful tradition... do I go in AGAIN and admit how hard the past year has been? Do I talk AGAIN about how difficult it still is for me to be rigorously honest? About how unimaginable it is to me that I'll be able to remain rigorously honest for a YEAR?!?

Similar to Weight Watchers: Don't look at it as a year; look at it as a month at a time, a week at a time, an hour at a time....whatever you need to do. A year is a huge, looming beast of an amount of time; work on it in smaller increments and it will seem more manageable.

I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know, but I know I always need reminders, so here it is.

I am sorry about the loss of your sponsor, and I have not heard of the whole "honest for a year thing" as most of the folks I work with look at it that before sobriety we had no idea how to be honest and that we work towards it in our lives...that by you telling your sponsor the truth, that was courageous. I don't have any idea about a new home group, etc..but maybe just pray about it and see what comes, give it time and maybe check out some new meetings in the mean time to see if any fit or if there's also another that speaks to your heart.

being honest about being dishonest takes a bit of courage. there's no way i could give 'good' advice since i don't know the entire story but i know from experience that to 'fess up' can be liberating and hard. and yet, yes, there can be consequences - external AND internal. if dishonesty has been a pattern, i'm not sure she had a choice. if not, and you were sincere and trying to right a wrong - i may give another chance. unconsciously you may have not wanted her as a sponsor anymore - the ego has fun tricks up it's sleeves at times. gawd knows really. follow your heart to lead you to the next right thing. you'll be fine i'm sure - no matter what.